Upgrading the Mardu Surge Commander Precon

Posted on April 23, 2025

Tarkir: Dragonstorm is here and it is red hot. Seriously, have you been to your local game stores lately? The set is flying off the shelf and shops everywhere are having a hard time keeping it in stock. Many players have gotten their hands on the Commander precons, though, and are no doubt looking for ways to upgrade them. A couple weeks back, I covered the precon of my favorite Tarkir clan, the Abzan, but now I want to look at my second favorite: the Mardu.

I'm no stranger to a good Mardu Commander deck. I picked up Kaalia of the Vast right from day one when I got my copy of Heavenly Inferno in the mail. I played Jirina Kudro humans thanks to Commander 2020 and built a fun and thematic Mathas, Fiend Seeker deck that I still play to this day. Finally, of course I - as a transgender woman - have enjoyed many a game of Commander with Alesha, Who Smiles at Death in my command zone.

I love a good aggressive strategy and the Mardu encapsulates everything I enjoy about this style of play. Best of all, they often do it in fairly creative ways. Case in point the Mardu Surge precon and its commander, Zurgo Stormrender.

Following his cowardly and lowly turn in the time-altered Dragons of Tarkir, Zurgo led the charge to overthrow Kolaghan and revive the Mardu as its khan. While the main Tarkir: Dragonstorm set's Zurgo stops your mobilized tokens from dying at the end of the turn, Zurgo Stormrender encourages it. By having your creatures die, it lets you generate tones of value... or else whittle away your opponents' life totals.

Let's take a look at the decklist and then start diving into those upgrades!

Mardu Surge Precon | Commander

Commander (1)
1 Zurgo Stormrender

Planeswalkers (1)
1 Kaya, Geist Hunter

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Normally this would be where I jump right into the upgrades for this deck. Instead, I want to take a moment and gush about how much I love the precon as is right out of the box. If you're looking for a great token-based aggro deck, this is an excellent option. As I went through a cursory look and would think "maybe this should be here...or that should be," only to find that the cards I was thinking about were already here.

There's plenty of token generators, ways to sacrifice your tokens away, and ways to pump up your tokens as well. Even the one-shot token makers - which I'm usually not a big fan of without a means of recurring them - work great for an introductory product like this. Precons like this are a big reason why I stopped producing my own secondary decklists and instead began talking upgrades as suggestions for people to determine the direction they'd like to take on their own. When decks look this great out of the box, it ends up being harder than it looks to make adjustments, which is a good thing!

Still, we're here to talk about ways by which you can upgrade your precon to take it further. For as good as the base deck is, there's still plenty of ways to improve on it. With this deck being a token-based aggro deck that loves having its creatures die, that offers a ton of flexibility, which is great for the purposes of customization.

First up is the obvious one: the token generators themselves. This deck is chock full of great options as is. Cards like Emeria Angel, Hero of Bladehold, Loyal Apprentice, Ophiomancer, and Twilight Drover each represent some of my favorite token generators of all time. All of them - and more - are here, representing a great selection of ways to make tokens in Mardu colors. Blade of Selves is extra fun since it sacrifices the tokens on its own while also producing several more tokens with the right card, such as Myr Battlesphere.

This is a great lineup of cards, but if you're looking for more options, there's no shortage of powerful token makers to be found. Two of the more curious options left out here to me are Felidar Retreat and Feldon of the Third Path. Both cards are quite cheap and can produce tokens every turn. Feldon can even generate you multiple tokens, provided he makes a token copy of a creature that brings tokens with it. Even slipping in something simple like a Resolute Reinforcements over, say, Shadow Summoning can go a long way synergistically.

Horn of Gondor is one that obviously couldn't be in a deck like this, thanks to its Universes Beyond quality, but is a cheap way to swarm your board with token fodder. Monastery Mentor and Grave Titan are two additionally modest options here cost-wise which are powerful cards that generate large numbers of tokens quickly. I'd also recommend looking into Bloodline Keeper // Lord of Lineage, as that powerful card was recently reprinted in Innistrad Remastered, making it far more accessible in the process.

There are also quite a number of planeswalkers that make tokens as well. Elspeth, Sun's Champion is probably the best at spitting out several tokens a turn, but Liliana, Dreadhorde General is great at this too. Not only does she make tokens for you, but she also provides a solid sacrifice outlet, removal, and card advantage all in one package. Sorin, Lord of Innistrad is another I'm quite fond of, as he not only makes tokens every turn, but can repeatedly produce emblems that make all of your tokens more potent for the rest of the game.

A recent planeswalker leads into the next part I'd like to cover: token doublers. Elspeth, Storm Slayer is the latest iteration of this iconic planeswalker and she comes with the ability to not only make tokens but double them as well. This has been showing up quite often lately, making cards like Mondrak, Glory Dominus and Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation // Temple of Civilization extremely popular recent options that go great for a deck like this. All of these - plus the classic Anointed Procession - are quite spendy, but if you have the money to pick up copies, they're well worth the price. If nothing else, at least the deck comes with a copy of Kaya, Geist Hunter to help you right out of the box.

So now that you can make the tokens, you need to find ways to make them die. You can always attack with them, but that's too easy! The whole point of making a deck like this is to get creative and find ways to take them out beyond simply entering the red zone. The deck already has some excellent options with the likes of Viscera Seer, Yahenni, Undying Partisan; and the criminally underrated Aron, Benalia's Ruin. You can't forget the classic Skullclamp either, which provides a repeatable means of "sacrificing" your 1/1s toward a repeatable draw engine.

There are numerous routes you can go toward sacrificing your creatures. A personal favorite of mine and many others is to throw them to cards like Ashnod's Altar or Phyrexian Altar to make more mana and help further your gameplan. You can do this as well in smaller one-shot effects like Culling the Weak and Burnt Offering as well, though the latter will only work well with your non-token creatures. You can also use Deadly Dispute for a little extra mana as well as card draw. In fact, you can take a page out of Pauper's book and utilize the various versions of this effect such as Reckoner's Bargain, Fanatical Offering, and Eviscerator's Insight all to great effect.

Many other options offer more unique effects. Goblin Bombardment allows you to pick off creatures or life totals with ease. Yawgmoth, Thran Physician can also provide strong removal as well as card advantage, making him an excellent inclusion. High Market is great at giving you a little life for your sacrifice, or you can go with something like Priest of Forgotten Gods for a much more sweeping impact on the board. Lastly, you can also make your creatures harder to deal with if you put Eldrazi Monument in your deck. Not only will it make your core gameplan more resilient, but it also provides you with a free sacrifice every turn. Not a bad deal!

Now that we've got some cool ways to sacrifice our tokens, we need to find some more ways to generate value from this. Admittedly, this is one of the things that surprises me the most in this list. Typically, decks like this love running a bunch of Blood Artist style effects. Here, though, your only options for these kinds of effects are Bastion of Remembrance and the commander himself. Adding in a Blood Artist, Cruel Celebrant, or Zulaport Cutthroat will go a long way. Given how heavy the token theme is, Nadier's Nightblade makes for an especially fitting option.

From there, the play is to look at other value options. The only two other cards that really care about your tokens dying are Morbid Opportunist - a one-time effect - and Twilight Drover, which just makes more tokens. Adding in a copy of Pitless Plunderer can generate more mana for you to keep going off. If you want to be really mean, you can also throw in cards like Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos, and Butcher of Malakir to make your opponents' lives miserable. Be warned, though, that if you look into these you may risk opening yourself up to Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos becoming Game Changers, as mentioned yesterday.

Each of these options represents but a fraction of the ways you could work on improving this deck. I'm solely looking at it from the line of fulfilling the themes the commander itself is trying to take advantage of. However, you could always look into cards that double or even triple damage outputs, make heavy use of equipment for serious utility every turn, or even play Soul Wardens in order to gain ridiculous amounts of life.

There's no shortage of ways to change this deck up and make it your own. If you've been able to get your hands on a copy of the deck, consider possibly trying out some of these cool suggestions. If you haven't yet, don't fret. It's sure to be only a matter of time until more precons arrive and you can get your hands on it soon. In the meantime, plan out your upgrades and then gear up for an awesome time at your next Commander night.

Just remember: math is for blockers.

Paige Smith

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